In recent years, attention has been focused on a Hybrid Vehicle, an Electric Vehicle, and the like in view of environmental issues. These vehicles are generally configured to be able to sense a certain anomaly when it occurs.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-245081 discloses an electric vehicle control device in which an electric motor is driven by an inverter. The control device includes a plurality of physical quantity detection means for detecting a plurality of physical quantities, respectively, which directly or indirectly relate to operations of the inverter and the electric motor, failure determination means for determining that a failure occurs when a prescribed change occurs or a change exceeding a prescribed value occurs in the detected physical quantities, and failure location determination means for identifying a failure location on the vehicle based on a result of the determination made by the failure determination means.
However, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-245081 merely discloses that the control device identifies a failure location. In general, when an anomaly of the vehicle is sensed, startup of the vehicle is inhibited. However, if startup of the vehicle is uniformly inhibited regardless of a location of an anomaly or a degree of the anomaly, there may occur an event that causes a user to feel inconvenience.